Morning Message Monday

09 September 2013

Today I want to begin to share some of my classroom mini lessons. One of my KEY lessons for phonological and phonemic awareness is my daily morning message. The message is always written in a letter format. I always include repetitive sight words to promote automaticity and retention, introductions to new units, and our daily agenda. This is a copy of today's morning message.

Intro Message on Color Words

To begin I pull a "star stick", popsicle stick with a child's name on it. I ask the student to identify the "short date". (Located in the top right corner) They read the short date. We discuss the short and long ways to write today's date. Next, I ask the student if they know any words in my message? If not, t I ask them to identify letters. Finally, if they are a reader they read the message. If not, I help them. All students end with a round of applause! THEN the work begins! Below is the final copy after ALL of our work this morning.

After our Mini Lesson

Today we identified the greeting and the closing of the letter as well as the short date. I wrote those in for you to see. Students identify END MARKS with a red circle (B/c Red Means STOP) and we talk about what each end mark means. Period: STOPS A SENTENCE Exclamation Mark: REALLY EXCITED Question Mark: ASKS A QUESTION.

Next, we identify the capital letters that start the sentences by underlining them twice with a green marker. (B/c green means GO). After that, we play "Letters and Sounds". The students find all of the capital letters and we review the letter and the sound.

Concluding the message is our "sight word hunt". I circle (with a cloud today) sight words and we echo them together as a class. OH! Also I zig zagged the "time word" - after!I hope you enjoyed Today's Morning Message! The student reader gets to take home the message and share with their family.